


Golden Apple

by RoseisaRoseisaRose



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Background ferdithea, Blue Lions Route, F/M, Glenn Lives, Post War, Somewhat canon divergent, a handful of background ships including, and other noncanon tomfoolery, background ingrid/glenn, background sylcedes, gilbert dies, this baby can fit so much pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29660166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseisaRoseisaRose/pseuds/RoseisaRoseisaRose
Summary: Annette’s perfect and complete happiness after Felix proposed lasted for approximately a fortnight. In subsequent years she would consider this to be a remarkably long time, relative to the rest of her existence.A Netteflix fic about breaking engagements, repairing relationships, and writing letters because using your words in person is really hard sometimes. Loosely based on Jane Austen's Persuasion.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 38
Kudos: 51





	1. Prologue

When Felix Fraldarius asked Annette Dominic to marry him in the spring of the Imperial Year 1881, she told him to be serious.

This is not to say that she did not love and adore Felix Fraldarius. In fact, up until this point in her relatively short life, Annette was not sure she had fully understood what the words “love” and “adore” could fully mean. Still, Annette was a practical young woman, raised on practical old values, and she firmly felt that Felix should be the same, at least as far as matters of matrimony were concerned.

Felix, understandably, objected to such characterizations.

“I am being serious, Annette,” he told her, solemnly, unsure of whether he was supposed to stay on one knee for this part of the conversation or whether he could stand up. “I’ll marry you tomorrow if that’s what you want. I’m in love with you.”

“We can’t just get _married_ , Felix, the continent’s going to war,” Annette argued, blushing furiously even as she ignored his proclamations of affections. Felix had never been one for propriety.

Felix wrinkled his nose, which you probably weren’t supposed to do in a proposal, but which was a more natural expression for him. “It’s _because_ of the war that we shouldn’t put this off, Annie,” he argued. “The Kingdom will almost certainly side with the Church; I have no doubt they’ll have me off to some front line by Garland Moon.”

“Felix, that’s terrible,” Annette protested, pulling him to his feet and looking up with worry as if she could already envision battle wounds across his face.

“It’s what I’ve trained my whole life for! And I’m damn good at it,” Felix said, giving her a smile that was as careless as her frown was concerned. “But if I die on the streets of Enbarr, I don’t want to die without promising my life to you.”

This was a very romantic sentiment. Annette was unimpressed by it. “I don’t want you to die at all!” she said, pouting down at their respective pairs of boots.

Felix placed a finger under her chin and lifted her face to meet his. “Then marry me and give me a reason to live,” he murmured.

This impressed Annette more. She was practical, not heartless.

After several exclamations of her delight and his goodness, Annette ran off to tell her friend Mercedes the news. Three hours later, she remembered that she needed to give Felix an answer.

Luckily for all involved parties, he was quite patient.

***

Annette’s perfect and complete happiness lasted for approximately a fortnight. In subsequent years she would consider this to be a remarkably long time, relative to the rest of her existence.

As Felix’s proposal had come on the heels of what would have been their mutual graduation from the Garreg Mach Officer’s Academy, it was decided that Annette would tell her family of their engagement in person, rather than writing a letter, and that Felix would inform his father in the same manner. At Annette’s request, they held off telling their friends until they secured familial approval.

Felix’s father, the reigning Duke of the Fraldarius territories, took the news well, as he was a practical man with great affection for his children. He had considered Miss Dominic to be a pretty, sensible young lady the handful of times he had spoken with her on his trips to Garreg Mach, and the Dominics were a respectable if minor family within the Faerghus nobility. Although he may have privately believed their engagement was perhaps rushed and their timing perhaps unfortunate, he himself had gotten married at quite a young age, and his elder son had been engaged since childhood to another respectable if minor noblewoman, so Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius could see no real reason for intervention, given that the match seemed reasonably judicious and the couple seemed wildly enthusiastic.

Annette’s family, on the whole, took a different approach to evaluating the situation. Had it been merely one objection in a chorus of congratulations, however lukewarm, Annette might have found the strength to follow her own convictions. But her family’s horror at the announcement was total and unified, although they each found different reasons to object to the match.

Annette’s mother was gentle, but concerned, and her mother’s gentle concern had always tormented Annette more than anything else in the world. An engagement at seventeen, she argued, was not just hasty, it was reckless. An engagement at such an age, and to a mere second son, would be to throw oneself away. Annette had beauty, she had wit, she had potential. One couldn’t make such a decision after a year’s acquaintance, and furthermore, she had not been fully introduced to the larger society of Faerghus and could not understand the options available to her. Furthermore, however sincere the young man may have been in his declarations of affection, there was little guarantee his affections would last. Above all things, Annette’s mother cautioned her against marrying someone whose love she could not guarantee and who may someday disappoint her. Lady Dominic knew firsthand how sudden and totalizing such disappointments could be.

Annette’s uncle, more strict and overbearing in his nature as both head of the Dominic household and paternal guidance for Annette, objected more strenuously, or at least more loudly. To be married at the cusp of a war, when all of Fódlan was in turmoil, was an outrage. To marry a soldier was unthinkable. To marry a soldier with no direct inheritance was the nail in the coffin. What did Annette expect, he demanded, with his study door closed but the entire household listening in the hallway outside. What did she expect would happen if her intended died on the battlefield? She had no guarantee his family would support her, no prospects of marriage as a widow of the war, no independent fortune of her own to fall back on. And Felix himself brought nothing to the match. His brother would inherit the family title; Felix’s prospects were tied entirely to his success in the Kingdom army. Such prospects were purely hypothetical. It seemed to Annette’s uncle that their mutual certainty of fortune – both in surviving the war and having wealth at the end of it – was the headstrong folly of youth. Alliances of any kind, as the Kingdom itself seemed on the verge of redefinition, were too reckless to be considered.

Annette had many cousins in Dominic. The majority of them were younger, and only offered opinions on hunting, fashion, and fighting imaginary dragons, depending upon the age and sex of the cousin in question. But Annette had always had the utmost faith and admiration for her two eldest cousins. And these cousins, sent back to Dominic from their finishing school at the outbreak of the war, reminded her on no uncertain terms that the match was a very poor one for a young woman in her position. She had taken tea with princes and future margraves, she regularly exchanged letters with Lord Holst’s favorite sister. Felix Fraldarius, however charming he was, had no title and little chance of gaining one. Annette’s goals to study magic and marry for love were adorable, but limited. One season in Fhridiad and she would forget every second son she’d ever met, they argued. And Felix, with his major crest and evidently charming manner, would be better off courting some wealthy heiress that wasn’t nearly as charming as Annette, from a much less respectable family.

Annette eloquently argued away such objections. Felix was talented, he was brave, he was loyal. He would no doubt be a hero of the war. When he said he loved her, he meant it. When she said she loved him, she meant it just as much. None of this was enough to sway her family or convince them to sanction the match.

Still, Annette may have been confident in her choices, despite her family’s objections, if it weren’t for a letter from the very same friend that been the first to learn of the engagement. Mercedes von Martritz was a genteel and intelligent woman, a few years older than Annette, and Annette both loved her like a sister and depended on her advice like a godmother. A month into the engagement, Annette wrote of her predicament to Mercedes, and two weeks later, she received a long, careful reply, full of the wisdom and good sense she had long treasured from her closest friend.

_Although I trust Felix’s intentions and believe his affections to be sincere, I cannot help but understand your mother’s perspective,_ Mercedes wrote in her final pages. _To break off an engagement now would not be a rejection of Felix’s offer entirely, but merely an acknowledgement that the situation is precarious and the decision was made in haste. Surely a marriage established in a time of peace, with plenty of time to consider the offer, would be one you can both be certain of, and one that will ensure your future happiness in every way._

_At any rate_ , Mercedes concluded _, If Felix is as devoted as he claims, and I believe that he is, he will surely wait one or two years for you. If he loves you now, he will love you when the war is over_.

Annette’s letter to Felix was long and tear-stained and quite possibly incoherent. The flurry of letters Felix sent in response were short and precise, but no less desperate for their brevity. Still, Annette remained firm in her decision. She was not ready to be married, and neither was he. They could continue their correspondence, and she hoped to continue their friendship. And when the war was over, she hoped they would meet again.

A month after she sent her responding letter, the prince of Fhirdiad was executed, and the Kingdom fell into factions, torn apart by a vicious coup.

***

When Annette’s uncle first informed her she could not continue a correspondence with the youngest Fraldarius son, she objected most strenuously to such a proclamation. His decision was firm, however. As the alliances out of Fhirdiad and throughout Faerghus shifted like the aftershocks of an earthquake, the Baron of Dominic was determined to keep Dominic on the winning side of history. And shortly after the execution of the crown prince, Fraldarius territory rose up as a leader in the faction that worked against the newly installed Dukedom. To continue such open and blatant communication with such a controversial and precarious family would be imprudent. Once power had been finalized and the fate of both Fraldarius and Faerghus had been decided, Annette could resume writing letters to whomever she pleased.

“What if Felix writes letters to me?” Annette asked.

“I suppose I cannot stop him,” her uncle said, weary of the argument.

“May I at least tell him why I won’t be writing any longer?” Annette asked.

“I shall inform the next messenger myself,” her uncle said with a frown. “You shouldn’t concern yourself with these sorts of unpleasant politics, Annette.”

Whatever Annette’s uncle told the messenger and whatever the messenger told Felix, it was assuredly not the tone or timbre Annette might have chosen herself. Felix’s next letter was even brief even by his typical standards. He thanked her for the message, assured her he meant no offense in taking her at her word that she wished to continue a correspondence, and wrote that he would be reporting to the front lines at Arianrhod within the next moon, so he was in no position to continue writing frequent letters, regardless.

Baron Dominic caught Annette sneaking out with a letter to be delivered to Fraldarius, and burned it. He caught her three more times after that. By the fifth letter, Annette suspected Felix had already left for Arianrhod. Whatever the reason, he sent no letter that year.

Or the next year.

Or the year after that.

By the time Annette received a letter from Felix Fraldarius, she had either forgotten what his handwriting looked like or reread his old letters so many times she thought she was imagining it.

_Ingrid has informed me that you wish to attend the Millennium Festival, as a great many of our foolish and nostalgic classmates seem so set on_ , he wrote after a brief greeting. _I am well aware of the position of your territory, and if you are unable to secure the appropriate means to travel safely, I am willing to act as shield and chaperone for the journey._ _I travel to Garreg Mach myself, much to my disgust, and can send a battalion to escort you or can travel to Dominic myself by Ethereal Moon. Travel in the Western territories is not to be undertaken lightly, so please inform me within the next month if this ~~proposal~~ plan is amenable to you._

_I realize you may not find a letter from me particularly welcome, but I write on behalf of our former comrades and classmates, who always thought highly of you, and the Kingdom itself, which may have need of a mage of your skill and intellect. If such an invitation is unwelcome, however, I will never trouble you again._

_Yours, etc._

Annette puzzled and thrilled over such a letter, particularly as she had not told Ingrid, or anyone else, that she wished to attend the Millennium Festival. While Felix’s assessment of her situation was accurate, it was not an assessment she had made herself. Her questions were soon put aside by a letter from Ingrid Galatea herself. Ingrid, one of Annette’s former classmates and Felix’s future sister-in-law, had the same sense of brevity and directness as Felix, but opened with more general niceties in asking about Annette’s health and family.

_I hope you don't mind, but you might be hearing from Felix soon,_ Ingrid wrote almost immediately after her opening greetings. _I will be honest with you, Annette, the war has not been kind to Felix. Between Dimitri’s sudden death, the endless fighting, and . . . other disappointments, I am worried he has grown hardened and unreachable. It is my hope that attending the Millennium festival may give hope to so many of us, just as we promised, and to be honest, you were always able to speak to Felix in a way that I couldn’t. I admit I told him you were considering attending in an effort to convince him to attend, as well._

_I have no guarantee that he will follow my advice and reach out to you, but regardless, please consider making the trip to Garreg Mach. We would all be glad to see you again. Felix would be most glad of all, I suspect. He has trouble saying it sometimes._

_I apologize for neglecting our correspondence until now, but I hope I can make amends in-person at the end of the year._

_Yours, etc._

Annette’s uncle originally objected to her association with Fraldarius because of Dominic’s uncertain position within Faerghus. By the Imperial Year 1885, he objected to her association with Fraldarius because of Dominic’s _very_ certain position within Faerghus.

For though the fighting remained at a stalemate, though Fraldarius and Gautier proved to host competent fighters with skilled generals, though the knights of Seiros herself sided with the former Kingdom and against the Emipre, Baron Dominic had keenly assessed the situation and made his prediction. Dominic sided with the Dukedom, and so Dominic sided with the Empire. To do less would invite destruction from both the north and the south. Paltry offers of an escort for his niece from the eastern territories meant little to him in the face of the overwhelming power of the Empire and increasing pressure from Fhirdiad.

Once more, Baron Dominic intercepted and burnt his niece’s letters. Once more, her mother reminded her that she had potential, that their whole family had potential, if only they could survive the war. Once more, her cousins promised her that the whole of Fhirdiad society, and indeed, the whole of Enbarr society, would be at her fingertips when the war ended, which would surely be soon.

Ethereal Moon waxed and waned, and Annette stayed in Dominic.

Felix never wrote to her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a while back I joked that I wanted to just rewrite Austen’s _Persuasion_ but with Netteflix and hope nobody noticed. Well! I stand by that idea. Admittedly at this point it’s really only the setup that’s very _Persuasion_ -y – the rest of the plot kind of got away from me and now it’s like its own whole thing. There’s magic theory, I dunno. It should be fun. But the setup for _Persuasion _is extremely good and sexy and I think it works pretty well for a game with a 6 year war and a 5 year time skip, not to mention for a fandom that runs largely on repression and pining. Gotta love Faerghus; do they even know what feelings are out there?__
> 
> I’m thinking every other Tuesday for updates, for now? Might adjust slightly as we go but I’m a slow pokey writer these days so that seems like the most reliable schedule.  
>   
> [ Hit me up on twitter if you want](https://twitter.com/Rose3Writes); I’ll probably post some preview snippets of upcoming chapters on weeks when there aren’t updates, which is very fun! In the meantime, drink some water and make good choices. Hugs and kisses!  
> 


	2. Black Pearl

_Two years later._

Annette looked despondently between the scarf and the stack of letters, one in each hand. She had promised herself she would pack light, but her trunk was already packed so full of clothes and books that she could barely close and latch it. She had decided to be judicious in her selection too late, and now she agonized over the scarf as if it carried the same weight as her 12 volume set of Advanced Magical Properties.

The scarf had been a present from Mercedes, when they were back at the Officer’s Academy together. It was blue with gold trim; they’d bought it right after winning the large mock battle, when pride for their house colors was still flying high. It was several years out of date, had more than one hole she needed to mend, and would not keep her warm in a Fhirdiad winter. Still, she had been so happy when they’d bought it, and just looking at it sometimes made her feel like she was in the academy again, or at least that she still had a right to call herself a Blue Lion. But she had little use for symbolic allegiance now that Fòdlan was unified, and she doubted anyone would notice a symbolic gesture, regardless. They’d probably just wonder why she didn’t choose a more sensible scarf.

The letters were even less justifiable. It was an assorted collection that she had gathered through the war, mostly from former classmates and old friends and a handful from her distant family. These were only the most important ones, the ones that contained particularly important news or that she knew would make her smile every time she read them. But it was hard to justify taking letters with her when she was certain to write new ones, even if a handful at the very bottom of the stack were from people she was unlikely to write to again –

“Annette! Is your trunk finally packed?”

Annette flinched at her uncle’s voice and threw the letters under a pile of neatly folded winter socks. Slamming the lid shut with enough force to squish everything into place, Annette tossed the scarf around her neck and ran to the door.

“Absolutely, Uncle!” she called out as she opened the door, to find him standing outside, much closer than she’d anticipated from the way his voice boomed the question.

“Very well. I’ll send footmen to come collect it immediately,” her uncle said, already seeming to lose interest in the conversation. “The carriage is ready to go; I believe your mother is wanting to speak with you before you leave.”

That was a good hypothesis; Annette’s mother was generally wanting to speak with her. Lady Dominic was a high-strung, fluttery sort of woman; she depended on her daughter’s opinions as routinely as she ignored them. Nothing could be more upsetting to her than the recent few months, in which Annette’s opinions had steered the course of her life away from Dominic and to a far away city without family or friends.

“Annette dear, are you _sure_ you want to go?” she asked as soon as Annette came out into view in the main grounds of the Dominic estate. The carriage sat a few yards away, the horses already bridled and ready to depart. “It’s so _cold_ in Fhirdiad this time of year. You could always wait and go in the summer.”

Annette smiled and patted her mother’s hand. “I really couldn’t, Mother!” she said, keeping her voice bright and practical. “I’ve already signed my contract at the School of Sorcery. They wouldn’t think much of me if I showed up halfway through the term, now would they?”

“I suppose,” her mother said slowly, in a voice that indicated she didn’t suppose anything of the sort. She grabbed Annette’s hands with both of hers. “Oh, Annette, if you don’t like it in Fhirdiad, you come right back here as soon as they let you out of that awful contract, all right? Louisa says that Enbarr society is really much more thrilling than you’d think. I’m sure she could find you a husband in no time at all, if you were just a bit closer.”

Annette smiled wanly. Her cousin’s marriage to an Empire general had certainly been everything her mother had dreamed for Annette in the last few years, and Louisa wrote her many bright, chatty letters about the opera and the tea shops in Enbarr. Annette had always been impressed at how the brightness didn’t dim when Enbarr fell. The tea evidently tasted the same, to Louisa. Annette envied that.

“I’m not sure there’s much for me in Enbarr,” she said tactfully. “I don’t think they’d let me join the opera.”  
  
“Oh goddess, with your voice? A terrible idea,” Lady Dominic agreed. “But I’m sure there’s a good many interested _noblemen_ –”

Annette coughed politely, not wanting to have this conversation again.  
  
“And at any rate,” her mother added, looking over Annette’s shoulder into the middle distance. “I’m not sure that Fhirdiad has much for our family. Not anymore.”  
  
Annette swallowed, unable to answer. She’d avoided thinking about her hopes and ambitions the last time she’d traveled to the city, certain she’d find a route to her father and bring him back to Dominic someday. There was no chance of that now.

The letter that announced Gustave Dominic’s death arrived months after the horrific slaughter at Grondor Field. It was probably delayed even longer by the fact that no one seemed to really know who was responsible for informing a Dukedom territory of the loss of a Kingdom general. Lady Dominic read the letter silently, thanked the messenger for his time, and did not come out of her bedroom for the next two weeks.

When King Dimitri sent a proper envoy, six months after the reclaiming of Fhirdiad and three months after the fall of the Adestrian Empire, Annette’s mother refused to see him at all. Annette sat in a lonely parlor and politely received assurances that her father had died with honor, protecting the king until the very end.

When the messenger left, her uncle scolded her for spilling tea on her dress, as if she wasn’t a proper lady of the house. 

“Maybe I’ll find something new, while I’m there,” Annette said finally. “Something for myself.” Her mother looked back to her with an inscrutable expression. It might have been pity.

“You’ll write every day, from Fhirdiad, won’t you?” was all Lady Dominic said in reply, fiddling with Annette’s scarf now. “This doesn’t really match your dress, Annette dear. And is that coat going to be warm enough? You’re traveling further north, you know.”

“It’s the warmest I have, Mother,” Annette said. “I’m sure spring in Fhirdiad will be lovely, don’t worry.”

“Damned awful city, is what it is,” her uncle said, materializing behind them as if he’d been part of the conversation the whole time. “Don’t know why anyone would want to live in that blasted frozen waste land. And so close to Sreng, at that. No wonder they can barely keep the palace standing.”

“Oh, Annette, _do_ be careful,” her mother said, the color draining out of her face.

Annette smiled at both of them. She would miss them, in their own way. Life was never dull when they were in the same room.

“I quite liked Fhirdiad when I was a student there,” she said. “And I’m sure Headmistress Maple will keep me in line. She certainly suffered no fools when I was a student!”

Annette’s mother did not look reassured, and her uncle did not look amused. Still, her mind was made up and there was little to be done. With many hugs and tears, mostly from her mother, and much stern advice on proper behavior, mostly from her uncle, Annette was handed into the carriage, along with her chaperone, and for the first time in half a decade, she left the borders of Dominic behind her.

***

The two day journey to Fhirdiad was uneventful, as Annette expected. Her chaperone was a woman from the village who had served the Dominic household for so long that Annette suspected she had been her nanny at some point in her infancy. Mrs. Pennyweather had agreed to accompany Annette on the trip more for propriety than safety – Annette was fairly certain that if they were beset by bandits, she would be far more responsible for protecting her chaperone than the other way around – and she looked forward to visiting seven of her fifteen grandchildren while in Fhirdiad, as she told Annette in the first four hours of the journey. Annette enjoyed the stories of all seven of them, although hours later she couldn’t remember the names of any. 

By the second day of travel, however, Mrs. Pennyweather was evidently tired from her journey, or tired of Annettte, and she fell asleep almost as soon as the carriage left the modest-but-respectable inn where they had spent the night. Annette didn’t mind silence, either, but her pulse was pounding down to her wrists and she couldn’t imagine sleeping, not when they would be in Fhirdiad within hours. She read some from volume IX of Advanced Magical Properties, which she always considered to be the most difficult and exciting volume. But eventually, the bumpy roads made reading a poor way to pass the time, so Annette stared out the window and tried not to think too hard.

She thought too hard, and of too many things, regardless.

It had been years since she’d seen the majority of her classmates from her time at the Officer’s Academy, but she still counted them among her closest friends – her only friends, if she was splitting hairs. So many of them had ended up in Fhirdiad that in both her darkest moments and her brightest daydreams she wondered if she had applied for a teaching position at the School of Sorcery in some desperate attempt to get back to those happy days. She had little hope of seeing Dimitri now that he was king, and many of his inner circle would no doubt be just as busy, but Mercedes had taken vows at a monastery in the city, and Ashe had eagerly promised to visit her when he was in town. And she secretly hoped, busy as they were, that her old friend would spare her an afternoon or two, now that they were all living close together again.

She dwelled on the hypothetical visits to these friends in order to avoid the most obvious unanswered question. She had carefully tracked the announcements of newly appointed knights following the war, and she was quite sure Felix Fraldarius’s name was not among them. So there was little reason to believe he would be in Fhirdiad with the rest. With his brother newly appointed as the Duke of Fraldarius, it was much more likely that he would be needed in his own territory. Or it was possible Dimitri had sent him to some front line - peacetime was tentative, and there were still border skirmishes and bandit activity to contend with. And anyway, Felix hated polite society – or he had, when she had known him. There was no reason he would seek out a crowded city as a way to spend his time.

And yet Annette hoped he would be there. Or perhaps she feared he would be there. She didn’t know, because she wasn’t dwelling on it. She had many other things to think of, and many other wonderful things to look forward to.

Eventually, Annette ran out of other things to think of, and so she stared out the window and thought of nothing at all.

*

It had always been a point of pride for students and alumni alike that the Fhirdiad School of Sorcery was the oldest school in Fódlan, established even before the Kingdom was independent, when magic was still seen as wild and dangerous. It bore its legacy on its very walls. The ivy crawling up the stone walls of the entryway were surely planted after Loog’s death, but as the carriage rolled through the imposing stone gates of the school Annette was reminded how impossibly old the school had seemed to her as a student, and how just attending made her feel part of something grand and valuable.

She sat up a little straighter and hummed with delight as they rolled down the wide main road leading to the front gardens of the school. She was starting to feel part of something grand and valuable once more. It was a feeling she’d missed.

As the carriage slowed to a halt at the front of the main building, Annette spied a short, plump woman hurrying out the door and down the path to meet him. Annette clamored over Mrs. Pennyweather and threw open the carriage door before the driver had time to dismount and open it for her. 

“Annette Dominic, as I live and breathe!” the woman said, meeting her halfway down the path. “Haven’t you grown into a lovely young woman!”

“Headmistress Maple, you haven’t changed a bit,” Annette said with just as much love and enthusiasm. The old woman beamed at her. She had a shock of grey curls that always seemed to be escaping her hairpins and a bright, piercing stare from which nothing escaped at all. Students had always loved her as much as they feared her, and Annette felt suddenly very eager to please her former Reason instructor.

“Oh, no lying to me! It’s been – is it nine years now? Ten? I’m sure I had at least some of my raven locks back when you were in my classroom!” Headmistress Maple said cheerfully, knowing full well that her hair had been starkly white for the last three decades at least. “But the school, I think you’ll find, is much as it has always been! If we can just get some more students who are as clever as you, Annette dear.”

Annette blushed profusely and changed the subject. “May I present my chaperone, Mrs. Violet Pennyweather?” she said politely as Mrs. Pennyweather ambled out of the carriage and down the lane towards them.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Violet,” Headmistress Maple said brightly, taking her hand with a practiced deferential nod. She had greeted and sent off countless chaperones and guardians for noble families far more powerful than Annette, and her manners were always in perfect taste. “Will you be staying with us for tea this afternoon? I’m sure Annette is wanting to rest from her journey, but I’ve a most delightful rose blend that I’m sure she’ll be fond of.”

“Oh, thank you, my dear, but my little Gwendolyn will be waiting for my arrival, so I’ll be off as soon as we’ve unloaded Miss Dominic’s luggage,” Mrs. Pennyweather said, patting Headmistress Maple’s hand as if she were a small and delightful child. It was the same way she’d patted Annette’s hand her whole life, so Annette supposed she treated everyone as an indiscriminate whippersnapper at this point.

Headmistress Maple attempts to persuade her to stay were polite, but not particularly invested, and as Annette’s trunk was carried off by a burly and uninterested groundkeeper, Mrs. Pennyweather was soon shuffled back to the carriage with all the requisite fanfare required for a part-time chaperone. As Annette offered her hand to help her into the carriage, she turned and took her by the shoulders.

“Now Miss Dominic, you make good choices while you’re here,” she said sternly, and Annette had a distinct memory of being lectured for ripping her dress playing with a toy sword as a child. “And don’t you let anyone say anything about anything, do you understand? Your family did what they had to; you should be proud to be a Dominic.”

Annette smiled weakly, but sincerely. It was not without reason that she had gone from one of the most eligible noblewomen in western Fòdlan to a newly hired schoolteacher, however prestigious the institution. Politically, Dominic had saved itself from serious repercussions after the Dukedom was dissolved and the Kingdom was restored. Whether or not the king believed her uncle’s hand was forced, he seemed willing to accept any proclamations of restored fealty as genuine. Socially, however, the Dominics were seen as little more than traitors. Annette had only seen this from the string of withdrawn proposals and cancelled visits from suitors across Faerghus, which made it hard for her to feel particularly upset about it while sheltered in Dominic. She wondered what awaited her family name in the capital city.

She put the thought out of her mind as the carriage rolled away and she turned back to her old Headmistress, who smiled at her warmly.

“Tea first, or do you want to see your rooms?” she asked briskly, as if she hadn’t overheard a thing.

In truth, “rooms” was probably a generous plural for Annette’s quarters. It wasn’t much bigger than the room she’d had as a student, although it seemed enormous comparatively, as she’d shared that space with three other students. There was plenty of shelf space for her many books, a fireplace that would surely warm the room in the cold Fhirdiad winters, and a desk in front of a large window that looked over the front grounds. Annette was delighted with it.

“Our long-term faculty sometimes take houses in town, but I’ve always found our rooms suitable,” Headmistress Maple said, running her finger along the top of the dresser and frowning at whatever dust she’d gathered. “No kitchen, I’m afraid, but you’ll be taking most of your meals with the students regardless, I assume. And a personal bath; those are new since you’ve been here.”

“It’s perfectly marvelous,” Annette told her, and she meant it. The bed was smaller than she was used to and the desk wobbled when she leaned against it, but it was something she couldn’t remember having in her life – her own space. “I can’t imagine ever wanting to move away.”

“That’s long been my philosophy,” Headmistress Maple agreed. After a pause of watching Annette wander through the room, she added, “We’ll be taking tea in my office, if you want to drop by, or . . .?”

“Oh, I’ll come now!” Annette said hurriedly, realizing she was perhaps being rude. She would have plenty of time to unpack.

Annette had only been in the headmistress’s office a handful of times as a student – at the beginning of the year for a welcome tea with other students, in the autumn when her mother had taken quite ill but she hadn’t been able to go home, and once at the end of the year when she’d been informed that she’d received the highest marks in the whole of the school on her final examinations. She originally expected the space to be austere and academic. Gardenia Maple was a leading expert in Reason Magic, and she had little time for nonsense in her research or her classroom. So it was always a surprise at how _cozy_ her office was. It felt more like a sitting room than anything else. Plants overflowed from hanging pots and seemed to grab at you as you went by. The bookshelves were stuffed with books, yes, but also knickknacks and gewgaw, some of which seemed to have mysterious magical properties, some of which just seemed to be abandoned craft projects or secondhand figurines of saints and cats. Annette recognized the familiar scent of baking spices as she walked into the office, and she eagerly eyed a plate of shortbread that lay on the central table.

“Headmistress Maple, it’s like nothing’s changed at all,” she exclaimed delightedly, taking a seat at the table and trying not to stare too obviously at the shortbread.

“Well, dear, it’s so nice of you to say that,” Headmistress Maple said, busying herself with the teapot over the fire. “I worry, you know. Students these days just don’t seem willing to apply themselves to the fundamental formulas; half of them arrive expecting to be able to cast full-fledged thoron spells by the end of the first week. All fight, no art, these days. You were never like that. But times change.”

“Were you open during the war?” Annette asked curiously. She’d lost track of most of Faerghus in the last few years. Dominic was tucked away from trade routes and borders, too secluded for news from across the continent.

The older woman grimaced for a moment as she picked up the teapot, although Annette could not tell if it was discomfort from heat or conversation. “The first year, we were, although we lost a good many Empire and Alliance students before graduation, once the war broke out. But the next year – well, it’s called the _Royal_ School of Sorcery for a reason, of course.”

Annette nodded and accepted her tea cup. The school had always been on close terms with the palace, and many of the scholarships and salaries were funded directly from the crown. In exchange, some of the best students were recommended to serve on behalf of the Kingdom, whether by attending the Officer’s Academy or going straight to court to work as royal mages. There was a reason half the students at the school were nobility.

Headmistress Maple frowned. “When that woman – Cordelia – took control of the city, well, she had some idea we would become the Noble School of Sorcery, in a newly established Dukedom. I don’t hold for such ideas, but of course we’re so close to the palace – well dear, I’m lucky to have friends in the Alliance who were kind enough to put me up during the last few years of the war. I always believed, in my heart, that the school would outlast her ambitions. And it’s taken us a bit of time to get back on our feet, but I’m sure we’ll get there. Would you like a biscuit?” she added, holding up the shortbread with a warm smile.

Annette accepted it with her mouth agape. Her old teacher spoke very calmly of being a political exile for the better part of half a decade.

“I’m so sorry,” she finally blurted out. “That must have been so awful for you.”

Headmistress Maple nudged Annette’s hand, encouraging her to eat the shortbread. “Ah, it all worked out in the end,” she said sagely. “We do what we have to in order to survive, in a war, don’t we?”

“I sometimes worry –” Annette said, but she was saved confessing to anything she would later regret by the door creaking open and a soft voice calling into the room.

“Excuse me? I don’t mean to barge in, but they said at the front gate that you were already – oh, Annie! You’re here!”

Mercedes von Martritz had always been a remarkably pretty young woman, and it seemed to Annette that she became more pretty and more remarkable every time they had met over the last few years. Those times, to Annette’s despair, had been few and far between. So it was quite forgivable how quickly Annette was out of her seat and halfway across the room, shrieking her friend’s name, even if her tea did slosh on the table and she did scatter shortbread crumbs across her skirt.

“I thought I wouldn’t see you until tomorrow,” Annette said in a muffled voice, her face fully buried in her best friend’s shoulder. Mercedes smiled down at her and patted her on the back of her head fondly.

“Headmistress Maple was kind enough to invite me to your welcome tea,” she said, her voice merry and bright. She often spoke as if she had a secret that was amusing her, but could amuse you, too, if she was kind enough to share it with you. “I guess I got impatient.”

“Well, come be impatient for tea, dears, it’s going to get cold,” Headmistress Maple broke in, gesturing towards Mercedes’s seat with a gentle, if chiding, smile.

Mercedes found her seat quickly enough and Annette managed to subtly brush the majority of the crumbs off her chair before sitting back down. Cups of tea and plates of shortbread were passed around the table, and they easily fell into light, pleasant conversation that felt to Annette as if she was back at the School of Sorcery as a student once more – as if the war never happened, as if the future was bright, as if she had a lecture to attend in thirty minutes.

The sun was quite low in the sky when Headmistress Maple looked up at the large, misshapen cuckoo clock above her mantle and announced that she needed to meet with the family of a prospective student.

“You girls just keep chatting; I’ll be back in two shakes,” she said, waving her hands as Mercedes started to stand up. “And if you have to leave before I return, Miss Matritz, I do hope we’ll see you more at this school this quarter. Annette has free use of the tea nook in the garden, and it’s promising to be a lovely spring.”

Mercedes smiled and gave all the requisite replies good manners expected, and Headmistress Maple disappeared out the door, leaving the two friends with a half-empty plate of shortbread and much unsaid conversation left between them.

“Do you think she is actually meeting with a student, or she just wanted to give us a chance to talk?” Annette asked, dropping another lump of sugar into her tea.

Mercedes hummed thoughtfully. “Headmistress Maple always had a knack for subtle tact, you know,” she said pleasantly. “I think it helps her manage a whole school full of emotions.”

Annette giggled, thinking of the many, many times her former teacher must have had to work to soothe her fragile feelings – she had been a particularly high-strung young student, and although her work did eventually pay off, she had ended staying after class to cry more times than she cared to name.

“How have you been these past few months?” Annette asked, taking another sip of tea. Of all her former colleagues, she had maintained the closest friendship with Mercedes, and had even hosted her in Dominic the summer after the war ended. But it had been almost a year since they had last seen each other, and some news couldn’t be shared in letters. Annette added tentatively, “How’s Fhirdiad?”

Mercedes took a sip of tea and considered the question before answering. “Fhirdiad is good. I’m good,” she said finally. “I’m working closely with the orphanage, these days, which wasn’t what I expected when I joined the monastery. But it’s important work. I’m glad to be there.”

“Do you have any more missions to Sreng planned?” Annette asked with a slight frown. Mercedes had left the army following the war, but reliable healers were hard to find, so she’d traveled north more than once in the last year.

Mercedes matched her frown. “I hope not. Dimitri hopes to settle things through diplomacy, not further fighting. I’m hoping to settle into a quiet life here. For all of us, really.”

“It feels so strange to hear you call him Dimitri, now that he’s king,” Annette said. It felt strange to talk about him as king, as well. It felt strange to talk about him as alive. Many things were strange, now.

Mercedes just smiled at this. “You’ll feel the same way once you meet him again. He’s . . . well, he’s not the same old Dimitri, I wouldn’t say that. But he’s the same where it matters. You’ll see.”

Annette snorted into her tea. “I highly doubt I’ll be meeting with the king of Fódlan any time soon, Mercie. It’s enough that I get to see you again!”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll run into most of our old classmates at some point or another – it’s hard to miss people in Fhirdiad, and practically everyone is here,” Mercedes said.

“Ashe isn’t,” Annette said glumly. She’d sent him a very cheerful letter upon receiving a job offer from the School of Sorcery, but by then he had already left the palace knights to open up an inn, a career change Annette could only vaguely pretend to fully understand.

“He’s closer than you think, in practice, and he comes into town to visit Dedue more often than not,” Mercedes said with a sympathetic smile. “Although more and more these days, Dedue leaves town to visit him. But Ingrid has been stationed at the palace for the time being, although of course she’ll be moving to Fraldarius after – oh!”

Her cheeks tinted pink and she dropped her shortbread as she covered her mouth. Annette gave her a wan smile. Tiptoeing around an entire territory wouldn’t really make things better.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Mercie, I’m not made of glass,” she said, hoping it sounded reassuring but worried that it just came out as cross. Hoping to show how reasonably she could discuss Fraldarius, she added, “I’m surprised she and Glenn have not wed by now.”

“It was hard during the war, you know,” Mercedes said, picking her teacup up and setting it down without drinking any. “She was on the front lines the entire time, you know, and Glenn – well, especially after his father died, he really did hold the northern territories together. I think they’re planning to be married this winter.”

Annette nodded, and she meant to say something pleasant and congratulatory, but she seemed to forget what those words were. They sat in silence for a long moment, Annette staring at her tea and Mercedes staring at Annette.

“Did he write to you, after the war?” Mercedes finally asked softly. Annette shook her head.

“No, I haven’t heard from him since – well, he didn’t write,” she replied. “I did what I could to follow the war, of course, even in Dominic. From what I understand he was quite successful.”

“He was . . .astonishing,” Mercedes admitted. “He’s admittedly a skilled fighter, and I don’t think there’s anyone Dimitri trusts more, now. But Annie,” she said, abruptly changing course, “Surely if his intentions had been sincere – he could have found you again, your uncle could not refuse him now. If he hasn’t even _written_ –”

“He made me no promises, Mercie. Or, well, he made many, but I very quickly released him from any of those,” Annette said, twisting the napkin in her lap tightly around one of her hands. “He owes me nothing. It’s been years; you can’t begrudge him from moving on.”

“I can begrudge him for many things, thank you very much,” Mercedes said primly, taking a furious sip of tea.

“And I’m sure he’ll feel your fury all the way in Fraldarius,” Annette said, smiling without even meaning to. “But I feel no need to be angry with him, or even really think of him much at all. I’ll be much too busy with– why are you looking at me like that?”

Mercedes tried to regain a neutral expression, dropping the look of concern mixed with surprise that had fluttered across her features moments before.

“It’s nothing big, it’s just – Annie, you _did_ know Felix is staying in Fhiradiad through the summer, right? He’s practically Dimitri’s head advisor at this point.”

It was a testament to Headmistress Maple’s good purchasing sense, or at least her sturdy china, that the teacup didn’t shatter when Annette dropped it.

“Oh! Goddess,” Annette swore under her breath, and she dove underneath the table to retrieve the cup, extremely thankful there was barely any tea left in it. She had hoped that when she returned to her seat she would have found some decorum along with the teacup, but she felt just as flustered as when she’d dropped it in the first place.

“Well,” said Mercedes, buying her some time.

“Well,” Annette agreed. She added, “There’s no reason to believe we’ll be running into each other that often.”

“No, no! None at all,” Mercedes agreed enthusiastically.

“And if we _do_ run into each other,” Annette continued, “We can be civil. The conversations will no doubt be brief. He probably won’t even think anything of it.”

“I’m sure he won’t,” Mercedes said hesitantly.

The teacup clinked as Annette placed it in its saucer.

“Do you think he’s forgiven me?” Annette finally asked, her voice small and uncertain.

“Annie, there’s nothing to forgive!” Mercedes said hurriedly, reaching out and grabbing her hand. “You did what you had to to get through the war. We all did.

“That seems to be the consensus,” Annette agreed with a sigh. She shook her hand free and poured herself another cup of tea, holding her breath to see if there were any cracks in the teacup that she had missed. The cup held firm – and more importantly, it held tea. Annette took a tentative sip. She added, “It just seems that an awful lot of people did an awful lot more.”

***

Annette stayed up later than she meant to that night, arranging her dresses by color and then cross-indexing them by warmth in her closet. Her shelving system was more complicated, and she piled the books on her desk, determined to organize and arrange them in the morning. Her candle had burned very low when she reached into her trunk and wrapped her hand around the stack of letters that she had so carefully debated bringing at all.

There was no debate as she climbed into bed with the letters and shuffled through them until she found one at the very bottom of the stack, unfolded and refolded so many times the center of a line had practically worn away. In a way, Annette didn’t make the choice to read it at all. But once it was in front of her, she couldn’t look away.

_Dearest Annette,_

_I disagree with your family, I disagree with your reasons, I disagree with your decision as strongly as I’ve ever disagreed with anything in my life. But you – I cannot bring myself to fault you, even as the letter arrives written in your own hand. I am sure, if we could just speak, if I could just talk to you in person, and hear your voice again – I’m sure your voice would not seem as bleak as your letters._

_Dimitri talks of marching with Sylvain and me in our next campaign at the Airmid border. The war cannot last forever. When we meet again, we will find a way forward. Until then, you have my whole heart. You always will._

_Yours, always,_

_Felix_

The candle burned out before Annette reached the final line, but it didn’t matter. She tucked the letter in the drawer of her bedside table and buried her face in her pillow, reciting the final lines without meaning to until she finally found sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mercedes just strikes me as the type of friend who would text you no context “DUMP HIM” memes whenever you were having a rough patch with your scrub boyfriend. Love that energy for her, honestly.
> 
> This chapter seems kind of exposition-y. That’s the price you pay when you have a prologue and then a first chapter, I suppose! I might just go ahead and upload chapter 3 next week rather than waiting, just so we can get things moving along. I know you drama goblins. You want the scandal. I love that energy for _you_ , honestly. 
> 
> So! Be on the lookout for another chapter next week, drop me a comment with your theories on what the other Lions have been up to over the last year, [follow me on twitter](https://twitter.com/Rose3Writes) if you want my extremely cursed takes. Drink water, wear a mask, etc etc. Fondly thinking of you all until next week!


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